


Confetti Hearts

by Sauou



Category: Banana Bus Squad
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, i don't know how joe stole the show but he just does that, prompt, t rating for nogla's potty mouth even if it's not that potty, this is long
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-29 01:58:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7665919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sauou/pseuds/Sauou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every night Moo hears the same melody being played from the house next door, and unwillingly he begins to fall in love with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Confetti Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> For jiixjinx on tumblr.

 

.

They’ve lived next to each other for four years now (counting through this coming March), and every night at the same time just before the cicadas come out to sing, those same soft, beautiful notes come drifting through Moo’s open window.

He can hear the song best through the kitchen, so he draws the shade and sits at the counter, a cup of tea in one hand and his head in the other other as he listens to the voice that drifts through his house.

It’s deep and haunting and at first Moo couldn’t figure out who the owner was until he saw the tall, skinny boy next door walking across his lawn and humming that sinful melody.

No one else on earth can make a guitar sing like an open heaven, the light should be spilling from the sky and birds bursting with joy but it’s just before dark, almost seven o’clock, and off in the distance a car screeches as it takes a turn too fast.

.

He loves his job, he really and truly does, but on days like this when he’s been yelled at from every end and mocked and questioned too many times to remain sane, Moo just wants to go home and curl up in bed and forget any of it ever happened.

But it did and he’s standing at the kitchen sink, washing his dishes from dinner all the work he’s still yet to finish sitting on the table behind him and grumbling to himself about why it’s all a waste of time when, there it is.

That soft sound that starts up so slow and carefully, barely there magic, until it’s dancing through Moo’s house and whispering into Moo’s brain and the man can only clench the cold edge of the sink, he’s crying from happiness, this is too much.

It’s too beautiful. The song is what he’d always imagined a rainbow would feel like; open and careful, a weaving of light and sound that has Moo forgetting everything else in the world but this moment and these notes.

.

He’s always wanted to say hello but Moo gets scared too easily and he chickens out at the last minute, waving one quick hand in greeting as he runs back from the mailbox and into his house. Slamming the door behind him and sprinting all the way up to his bedroom where he falls across the bed and mopes into his pillow.

He’s never had this much trouble talking to anyone else he’s ever met and Moo buries his head into the sheets in desperation as he hears the harsh, off-key voice of his confused next door neighbor walking back to his own house.

.

It’s a Nogla, that’s what he is.

Or, that’s what is the name of the man who can’t stay out of Moo’s thoughts during the most inappropriate and awkward times.

(Like when he was driving to work, late once again because he tarried too long his mind a million miles away in the house next door. Stopping at the red light and forgetting what to do when it turns green because he’s too busy remembering the strum of a late-night guitar.

During his bath even, with his wash cloth scrubbing down his chest when the dark eyes and unruly hair that’s haunting him emerges once more and Moo is flushing down to his bones and he feels horrible about it but he can’t stop his hand, it’s already moving.)

The Nogla has a brother who stopped by his house yesterday afternoon, carrying something Moo couldn’t quite make out from his sneaky perch spying behind his living room couch through the drawn curtains.

Brother Nogla is just as tall and awkward and Moo’s embarrassed that he’s already forgotten the man’s name but he was too captivated by the call that gave the word he’d been wondering about for so long now.

The two men met on the sidewalk in front of Nogla’s house, hugging each other and laughing at jokes too softly-spoken to hear through another house.

.

The brother stayed for two days, and Moo smiled at other man uncomfortably across his yard every morning on his way to pick up the mail. He should be used to this embarrassment by now, this crush of his, but Moo just can’t quite take the last few steps to actually saying ‘ _hello’_.

The brother is pretty chill about everything and just waves back at Moo as he takes his own path to his mailbox, not seeming to have a care. 

On the third day Nogla is back at the edge of his yard, bright and early in the morning by the time Moo is up and coherent enough to process things, staring blatantly through his living room window at the two men.

They are standing at the curb, loading a suitcase into a the trunk of a taxi cab and chatting with each other as they say goodbye. 

Brother Nogla light-heartily slaps Nogla on the back and grins. And Nogla himself retaliates with a soft punch to his brother’s chest that barely moves the other man.

Then they’re talking and hugging and the brother is off in the cab, heading down the street while Nogla just stands there at his curb and watches.

Moo, still hiding behind his couch and peering out his curtains, watching it all.

He feels like such a creep sometimes, but he really wants to know more, to meet this person who lives just on the other side. But as Nogla turns around to go inside, Moo chickens out and ducks down so low he’s almost on the floor, waiting still, and silent, until his neighbor is safely back in his own house.

.

The nights are getting longer, and colder now. Winter is becoming hard-pressed upon their small city and already Moo’s had to pull his thick quilts out of storage from the back of his closet.

Too often the cicadas are silent now, already mostly gone now that summer is past. And days pass with Moo sitting quietly at his kitchen table before he hears that same low melody he’s been waiting for.

But the tune begins to change, the notes get longer and sadder, heavy with a malcontent presence that deepens the song into something almost mournful.

Nogla starts leaving his house later and later, until Moo almost never sees him at all anymore no matter how long he sits on the living room couch, pretending to work while he watches out the window.

The days Nogla does show up, he barely steps off his porch before he’s back inside and hidden behind whatever reasons he has for keeping his door shut for so long.

The tall skinny man becomes even more so, visibly loosing weight and growing deep circles under his eyes from lack of sleep. He slouches when he walks, shuffling his feet down the sidewalk to gather the built up mail that spills out of his mailbox. 

Hands in his pockets and head in the clouds, such a gloomy expression over those lumpy features that even when Moo catches him outdoors he just doesn’t know what to say.

Whatever’s gone wrong, he doesn’t know, and he starts to worry about the man next door.

.

It’s on an early Thursday morning when Moo finally figures out what to do but he doesn’t have any time to get things done until finally Saturday, he’s always running behind trying to catch up. His work piling up on his desk and all over the kitchen table there’s no place to put anything no time to start.

Until past eleven when Moo finally wakes up, groggy but ready.

Pulls the flour down from the top-most cabinet, standing on his toes to reach it. Gathering up the sugar and salt and baking powder and coco powder and everything he needs to lay it all across the finally-empty kitchen counter.

And it’s been awhile, but he still remembers how to make this so it doesn’t take Moo long at all to bake his favorite recipe but the hard part comes while the brownies are cooling on the platter.

How to take them next door to his neighbor.

.

The brownies sit on his counter all day Saturday while Moo paces back and forth through his kitchen, his living room, down the hall to his bedroom and then back all over again. 

He’s wearing holes in his own carpet from his worrying but he can’t get his feet out the door, he doesn’t know what to do how to help but he wants to say something, wants to help.

Ever since Moo was a small child every summer, every year, his grandmother would hold his hand as he kneeled in a chair, too short to reach the counter, too eager to help to turn away.

The ingredients laid out before him as she counts, reminding him what goes where and how many of which to use.

Until the very scent of baking chocolate brings back those happy memories of his grandmother’s smiling face, her gentle touch. And this he wants to share with the downtrodden man next door to him but ..

All he has to do is walk out his door and take the few steps over there.

And it’s too hard.

.

For four years..

Nogla’s been living in this brick and mortar house on the edge of town, just him and his little dog Joe. 

They moved in just before spring, years ago, too early in the morning to properly say hello to his neighbors and by the time he finished unpacking and putting everything away it was too late to say anything at all.

Not that he minded the quiet much. Nogla tended to keep to himself most of the time, and rarely even left the house anymore. He made enough money playing video games on the computer and what was the point of going out and partying anyway?

This kind of life suited him better; lounging across the couch with the curtains drawn and the flicker from the television the only light in the whole room. His puppy snoring across his lap.

.

It’s just a few days after he’s moved in, so damn early in the morning that he should have been in bed hours and hours ago but he’s up and he’s walking down the small overgrown sidewalk to his mailbox when he sees his neighbor.

Already climbing into his car, some kind of briefcase or something in one hand and looking so large and soft and if ever a man was pretty it would have to be this guy, Nogla has to turn his head and rub his eyes because he’s damn sure he’s started dreaming.

He just has a bundle of bills and junk mail in his hand, but he pretends to be deeply engrossed in looking through them as he watches the man with the warm face drive away.

Who? Who is that?

The only answer Joe has to give Nogla’s question is a warm pile of shit waiting for him right behind the front door when the man walks in.

(It’s a very eloquent answer.)

.

As Joe starts getting older, and growing out of his puppy stage (and into the rough-housing, never sit still part of his life), Nogla starts to experiment with music again.

He finally unpacks his guitar, years after he first put it away, and starts to tune the thing back into working order. Strumming and working the strings into a coherent sort of sound.

He’s scared he’s forgotten how to play but his fingers remember the way. It’s a slow melody, one he’s hummed to himself a hundred times before and will a thousand times yet, and Nogla finds the words slipping out as he plays.

A song he could sing forever.

.

Joe starts to fall asleep to the sound, so Nogla plays every night, sitting on his living room couch with the half-open window blowing a cool breeze across his face as he closes his eyes and sings.

But it’s getting late, and Nogla’s tired and he heads to bed. The morning comes too fast now with Joe waking him up halfway through the night every night but still.

Still Nogla sings and still he plays, living every day each the same as the last.

.

Moo is an early bird, Nogla almost never gets to see him, though he does try sometimes.

And even when Nogla does make it outside in time, he’s too stricken by the light in the eyes of a man too large to move so gently, so carefully through the grass, stopping to pick up ladybugs on his way.

Who does that?

What kind of a person is so careful and kind to a bug even?

And Nogla finds himself openly staring, he turns away and looks off in the distance, pretending to find something interesting in the tangled mess of hedges that is what has become of the house across the block.

.

He never really has much to say (except when he does) but Nogla finds himself swearing more at his dog than normal as the pup pees again and again in places, times when he would usually be able to control it.

Joe was beginning to sleep through the night without having to be walked, but lately Nogla wakes up to bedsheets wet with the putrid scent of dog pee.

He yells and jumps out of bed, every time, picking up Joe and running him outside to finish his business. Cursing as he lets the dog back in, pulls the bedding off to throw in the washer and heads into the shower.

It’s become so much of a routine, Joe’s bladder problems, that he starts to not even care too much despite the hassle waking up in urine every morning has become.

Until his brother shows up.

.

“That isn’t normal,” Aindreas says when Joe pees himself in his sleep again. “He might be something wrong with him.”

“Ah,” Nogla shrugs the worry off. “He’s just a puppy yet, that’s all.”

“Still,” the man peers down at the pup kicking in his sleep. “Should probably take him to a vet. I can take him with me tomorrow when I go into town, if ya want?”

“No reason not to, I guess, if you’re going anyway.” Nogla says between bites as he finishes his dinner, watching his dog with different eyes. A new thread of wonder, of fear worming through him.

.

His brother is gone by the time he wakes up, Joe with him and the house is, for the first time, almost oppressive it’s so silent and empty all Nogla can do for the first few hours is pace and worry.

He tries calling but his brother is too busy to answer so Nogla just leaves a voicemail wondering how the traffic was, did he make it in time, and, oh yeah, what did they say about Joe?

But it’s almost noon and still no word and he’s must have called a hundred times Aindreas’ mail box is getting full there’s no need to be so desperate really, a million things could have happened to keep them quiet.

(A million deaths a million dangerous ways his brother could have died his dog could be gone he doesn’t want to give voice to the concern that lances through him and keeps him pacing through the house but he can’t help it.)

What could have gone wrong?

Nogla can’t keep still, can’t stop walking he’s wearing a groove in the floor his feet are sore his body stiff from worry he finally manages to sit down at almost sundown but his fingers keep twitching they need something to do.

He pulls out his guitar and starts strumming the old cords his heart has memorized into reflexes but, it doesn’t feel right..

It’s too soft, too light of a song.

Nogla frowns as he picks at the cords, holding too many for too long until the tune deeps and sharpens into something almost eerie.

Then his phone rings.

.

It’s bad news. Waiting always leads to bad news, you know, and Nogla shouldn’t have been surprised at all, but he’s grateful at-least to not have had to sit in the vet’s office for all that time with nothing to do but worry and wait.

(Here, at least, he had his guitar.)

And they keep Joe overnight for observation and emergency surgery, Aindreas tells Nogla when the other man finally finishes fussing him out for not answering his phone all day.

(”The battery died, I’m sorry, I forgot the charger at home.” Is the feeble but honest excuse.)

“He’ll be home tomorrow, I’ll drop by and pick him up then before I leave. It’s not as bad as it sounds, probably.”

.

Joe is back in Nogla’s arms before he knows it, too tired to bark but his little tail is wagging just the same as if he was under full power, still partly knocked-out from all the drugs the vet had to give the small dog.

Nogla puts Joe down in his bed and sits there, right on the floor, and watches his little dog.

(“It’ll be alright,” his brother reassures Nogla before leaving for the last time, trying to cheer him up into a state of normality. “Just you wait, Joe’ll be back to his old spirits in no time at all.”

And ruffles his brother’s hair until Nogla is swearing and grinning, shoving the other man off into the taxi cab and back down the road.

“Thank you,” Nogla says, too late. But his brother is waving out the window of the cab all the same.)

.

Joe sleeps at all hours of the day and night, and Nogla finds himself waking up too many times when the sun hasn’t even begun to rise. Or even set, his face buried in the couch cushions from where he passed out hours ago not even making it to his bed.

He sings to entertain himself, to occupy himself while he works and worries. Joe _is_ doing better, but he’s not all the way back and that in itself is something of a concern.

.

The knock comes, softly at first, then louder as whoever stands on the other side of Nogla’s door tries to catch his attention.

He takes a bit longer than necessary getting to his front door because he was fast asleep when the first call came, and by the time Nogla manages to open it his neighbor is already back down the steps and halfway to his own house.

A covered plate of brownies left on his doorstep.

“Hey,” Nogla starts without thinking. “I.”

Moo turns, more in reflex than any conscious action because as soon as he sees Nogla’s face he begins to blush a furious shade of red and advert his eyes everywhere but on Nogla.

“Um.. “ He doesn’t know what to say, but it’s a surprise that Nogla will welcome any day. “You want to .. come in or something?”

.

The house smells, when Moo first walks inside, and its a little strange because he didn’t realize things were like this but he carries his plate of food into Nogla’s kitchen, following the other man through his brief tour of his own house.

“Here’s the tv,” Nogla waves a backwards hand as he passes it. “And here’s the kitchen. We eat here. Over there’s the shitter and that door’s the bed down the hall there. Not much to see really.”

“It’s very .. nice,” Moo compliments sincerely. “Is that a picture of your mom up there?”

“Aye.”

“And.. all those boys in those photos, you must be close with them.”

“Yeah,” Nogla admits. “They’re my brothers. I haven’t seen much of them really, except Aindreas, he stops by once every so often.”

“I saw him..” Moo starts to say, but is stopped by the curious glance from Nogla. “Uh when he, when he stopped by last I think? A few days ago.. You seemed..” but trails off without finishing his thought.

The sun is just starting to set, and fills the room up with a soft glow that’s almost orange it’s so ethereal. And they’re both standing in the kitchen, with nothing do do and not much to say, but plenty of time for everything when Nogla finally figures out the right words.

“You hungry?” He asks. “I’ve got some brownies I could share with you.”

And Moo just smiles.

.

They spend hours sitting at the tiny table in Nogla’s kitchen, at first in awkward silence until Nogla takes the first bite of chocolate and starts swearing like a goose in the pen, startling Moo with his profanities until the larger man starts crying, he’s laughing so hard.

“This is _fucking delicious!”_ Nogla screams at the top of his lungs and Moo laughs the harder. 

He’s not sure what he was so afraid of to begin with.

.

They talk. 

About the brownies, about Moo’s grandmother. (”She taught me how to make them when I was about five, I think. I can show you some time if you want.”) About the noisy kids across the road who can’t seem to keep quiet at night.

About little Joe who comes walking into the kitchen for his food bowl, already smelling of fresh pee when he wakes from his nap.

“Ah, for fuck’s sake,” Nogla lets out exasperated as he gets up to clean the mess, and Joe, up again. “Ya did it again, Joe.”

“He’s doing this a lot?” Moo asks, following the other man through his house. “Did you take him to a vet..”

“Yeah yeah,” Nogla waves him off. “Last week (or the week before?) when my brother was here. He dropped him off and they did some kind of surgery and it was supposed to fix him but he’s still doing it every once in awhile.”

“You mind..” Moo starts, but trails off, reluctant.

Nogla is on his knees, ferreting out all the pee spots he can find when he looks up at Moo and stops. “I mind what?” He asks, gently.

“Well, I was.. I mean I used to be. Well I kind of know a lot of vet stuff and if he’s still doing this, do you mind if I .. take a look at him?” 

“No!” Nogla shakes his head. “No, not at all go right for, he should still be in the kitchen back there.”

.

And Moo comes back, soon enough (too soon for Nogla’s tastes but it’s either really bad or really good news).

He’s wiping his hands with a paper towel as Nogla contains the last of the mess and tries not to worry. “He alright, doc?”

Moo just smiles. “He’ll be fine.” Catching Nogla’s attention finally, that sigh of relief spreading from one face to the other. “He’s still recovering, but that’s not the issue with his bladder.”

“What is, then?” Nogla asks as he gathers up the things he has to wash.

“I think..” Moo stops, frowns, then nods to himself and continues. “I think he’s just lonely.”

“Lonely?! He has me!” Nogla shouts.

“Well yeah, but, you’re not a dog Nogla, (as much as you smell like one).” He says, muttering the last bits under his breath though Nogla still catches it and grins back in amusement.

“So, I need to get another dog?” Nogla asks. “Is that all he wants?”

“My aunt just had some puppies,” Moo offers. “We can stop by her house tomorrow if you want and pick one out.”

(”This was all just a ply to get me alone,” Nogla snarks and Moo can’t help the laughter.

“We’re already alone, you dunce.”)

.

Tony is just as bad as Joe, but in ways that he should be.

He chews through the furniture, and shits wherever he pleases, and barks at all hours of the day at anything he finds interesting or scary or boring or anything.

But he’s alright, in the end. And Joe starts to perk up more and more with a brother of his own, so to say, to play with.

.

“No, not the baking soda!” Moo corrects again, grabbing the offended bottle out of Nogla’s hands. “That’s the third time I’ve told you this. We use baking _powder_ , not baking _soda_.”

“I don’t see the difference,” Nogla squints, holding the baking powder up to the light. “They’re just the same, aren’t they?”

“Not in the least.” Moo sets the baking soda back in the cupboard (again) and goes over what he knows. Describing what these things are and why they’re different and why, even if baking powder is baking soda, baking soda isn’t baking powder.

It starts to make Nogla’s head spin so he sits down and asks, “Can we start with something simpler? Like cereal? I know how to make that.”

Moo grins and before he can stop himself, says “I love you.”

His hands flying over his mouth, too late to stop the words and barely able to hide the blush that’s consuming him as his eyes widen and his heart stops.

“I’m .. I what?” Is all Nogla can manage. But the answer isn’t forthcoming and Moo is beginning to look like a man ready to sprint in a moment’s notice.

“I’m .. flattered,” he begins, watching the disappointment break Moo’s pretty face, the other man’s spirits falling as his impulsive action costs him. “I didn’t know.. you felt that way..”

.

Nogla forgot, for awhile, that he had a crush on this man.

Or rather, he never forgot about his feelings, he just forgot that _Moo_ didn’t know about them. (And what an odd name that is, Moo.)

He took too much delight in having Moo visit every day, in waking up to that cheerful voice calling across the yard, asking if he was awake yet.

Those gentle hands that held his own, shook his hand and tried to guide him through things he should already have known. That pretty smile, those soft cheeks.

That warm presence he took for granted in his home everyday, now starting to back slowly away from Nogla, visibly upset and shaking and apologizing profusely but Nogla’s brain is only just beginning to process what’s actually happened and..

His crush, had a crush, on him?

.

“I didn’t know..” Nogla trails off.

“I’m sorry!” Moo shakes his head. “I didn’t mean it, just a joke, um. I mean not that I think it’s funny but, I don’t .. I sorry!” Backing his way out of the kitchen, trying to subtly run his eyes are filling up with tears and he feels just awful when Nogla’s words repeat and again and this time Moo actually hears him.

“I didn’t know baby, that you felt that way too.”

.

They kiss and make up (from their almost fight and just to kiss for the sake of doing it) and end up several hours later lounging on Nogla’s couch the two puppies all tuckered out from the activity they’re sleeping all curled up in each other.

Moo and Nogla are just as bad, on the too big cushions, cuddled so close together it’s a wonder where one man ends and the other begins. But Nogla sees his guitar and, with an idea, offers to play.

“Yes!” Moo begs. “Please do. I.. Its how I first fell in love with you,” he admits.

The grin that winds across Nogla’s face and reddening cheeks is just as honest as the song he starts to sing before he’s even begun playing.

Calling for his love.

On sunny days.

To come home, come home my love.

Come back to where you belong.

Come home with me.

/


End file.
